Lincoln and Ann Rutledge

[RJNorton]

(05-31-2014 01:49 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  Regarding the Grants leaving to visit their children on Good Friday, John Russell Young relates what Grant told him about that evening in Around the World with General Grant.

"Lincoln had promised to go to the theater, and wanted me to go with him. While I was with the President, a note came from Mrs. Grant saying she must leave Washington that night. Some incident of a trifling nature had made her resolve to leave that evening. I was glad to have the note, as I did not want to go to the theater. So I made my excuse to Lincoln, and at the proper hour, we started for the train."

In Grant, Jean Edward Smith says that Grant accepted the invitation but that "Historians have assumed that Julia did not wish to spend the evening in Mrs. Lincoln's company."

Julia Grant's version follows. It sounds to me like the Grants could have changed their plans to attend the theater with the Lincolns. When Mrs. Grant says "I do not what possessed me to take such a freak" to go home, I think she is being polite. I suspect her real reason was to avoid being with Mrs. Lincoln not only because she disliked being with her but because Mrs. Lincoln could be quite unpredictable in her behavior and Mrs. Grant certainly would not want a repeat of City Point.

"As soon as the General awoke in the morning, I asked him earnestly if we would not leave for Burlington today. He said: 'I wish I could but I have promised Mr. Lincoln to go up this morning and with him see what can be done in reference to the reduction of the army.' I pleaded earnestly, and he promised me that if he could possibly do so he would try and leave Washington that evening. Just then, a tap at our door brought a note from the President, saying: 'Dear General, Suppose you come at eleven o'clock instead of nine. Robert has just returned and I want to see something of him before I go to work.' The General said that he was afraid that this postponement would prevent his getting off that evening, but on my insisting that I must go, he said, 'Well, I will see what I can do. I certainly will go if it is possible.'"

"At midday a "man dressed in light-colored corduroy coat and trousers and with a rather shabby hat of the same color" showed up at the Grants' door to say, "'Mrs. Lincoln sends me, Madam, with her compliments to say she will call for you at exactly eight o'clock to go to the theater.' To this, I replied with some feeling (not liking either the looks of the messenger or the message, thinking the former savored of discourtesy and the latter seemed like a command), 'You may return with my compliments to Mrs. Lincoln and say that I regret as General Grant and I intend leaving the city this afternoon, we will not, therefore, be here to accompany President Lincoln and Ms. Lincoln to the theater.' He hesitated a moment, then urged: 'Madam, the papers announce that General Grant with be with the President tonight at the theater.' I said to this: 'You deliver my message to Mrs. Lincoln as I have given it to you. You may go now.' He smiled as he turned to leave. I have thought since that this man was one of the band of conspirators in that night's sad tragedy, and that he was not sent by Mrs. Lincoln at all. I am perfectly sure that he, with three others, one of them [John Wilkes] Booth himself, sat opposite me and my party at luncheon that day.

"As soon as I received the invitation to go with Mrs. Lincoln, I dispatched a note to General Grant entreating him to go home that evening; that I did not want to go to the theater; that he must take me home. I not only wrote to him, but sent three of the staff members who called to pay their respects to me to urge the General to go home that night. I do not know what possessed me to take such a freak, but go home I felt I must. The General sent me word to have my trunks ready and for Jesse and me to have our luncheon, and, if he could be in time, we would take the late afternoon train for Philadelphia.

"It was in obedience to this that I was at late luncheon with Mrs. Rawlins and her little girl and my Jesse when these men came in and sat opposite to us. They all four came in together. I thought I recognized in one of them the messenger of the morning, and one, a dark, pale man, played with his soup spoon, sometimes filling it and holding it half-lifted to his mouth, but never tasting it. This occurred many times. He also seemed very intent on what we and the children were saying. I thought he was crazy."

Mrs. Grant recognized "this same, pale man" glaring at her and General Grant as they rode to the depot later that day.

Julia Dent Grant, The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant)
http://books.google.com/books?id=tQaZhxw...er&f=false

Below is Burlingame's account with the references he used. Grant saying, “we will go visit our children . . . and this will be a good excuse” makes no sense since neither one of the Grants found out about the invitation until after General Grant left for the White House that morning.

" The previous evening, Lincoln had been too sick with a headache to take a
carriage ride with his wife, who wished to see the brilliant illuminations celebrating Lee’s
surrender. Grant, at Lincoln’s request, had agreed to accompany her. As she and the
general entered their carriage, the crowd that had gathered outside the White House
shouted “Grant!” nine times. Taking offense, Mrs. Lincoln instructed the driver to let her
out, but she changed her mind when the crowd also cheered for the president. This
happened again and again as the carriage proceeded around town. The First Lady
evidently thought it inappropriate that Grant should be cheered before her husband was.
The next day, Grant declined the president’s invitation to join him and Mrs. Lincoln to
attend a performance of Our American Cousin, for he feared incurring her displeasure
again.61 Moreover, Mrs. Grant informed her husband that she did not wish to be around
the First Lady after the unpleasantness at City Point three weeks earlier. (Later she told
Hamilton Fish “that she objected strenuously to accompanying Mrs. Lincoln.”) Grant
said “we will go visit our children . . . and this will be a good excuse.”62 When the First
Lady’s messenger announced that the presidential carriage would call for her and her
husband at 8 p.m., Julia Grant curtly informed him that they would be out of town that
night.63 And they so were rolling along aboard a train to New Jersey while the Lincolns’
carriage rumbled toward Ford’s Theatre."

61 In the fall of 1869, Grant gave this account to his cabinet. Hamilton Fish diary, entry for 12 November
1869, Fish Papers, Library of Congress.
62 Reminiscences of Susan Man McCulloch, privately owned, in Benjamin P. Thomas and Harold M.
Hyman, Stanton: The Life and Times of Lincoln’s Secretary of War (New York: Knopf, 1962), 395.
63 John Y. Simon, ed., The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (New York: Putnam, 1975), 155.

Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln

Fascinating post, Linda! We have discussed several times over the past two years the reliability/lack of reliability of Jim Bishop's book. But I thought I would share his take on the Grants' trip. According to Bishop there were four trains north each day, and the Grants chose the route that took 13 hours. The shortest trip left the next morning and took 7 1/2 hours.

Here was the route they chose (according to Bishop):

6 P.M. Leave Washington City
7:25 P.M Arrive Baltimore
12:00 P.M. Arrive Philadelphia
Change Trains
6:00 A.M. Leave Philadelphia
7:00 A.M. Arrive Burlington

If they had spent the night of the 14th in Washington they could have caught a 7:30 A.M. express the morning of the 15th and arrived in Burlington at 2:58 P.M. So they could have gone to the theater with the Lincolns, spent the night at the Willard, and taken an express train the next day (although arriving in Burlington later).

The implication is they definitely wanted to leave the evening of the 14th (despite the prospect of a much faster train trip the next morning).